


Make It Worse

by Jiksa



Series: Fists & flowers 'verse [1]
Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fisting, Flowers, Heartbreak, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 14:42:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13789875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jiksa/pseuds/Jiksa
Summary: He’s looking at Nick with that soft, terrible look in his eyes, the look that tells Nick the two of them are probablysomething.





	Make It Worse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [renlyne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/renlyne/gifts).



> Someone posted a pic of [curly-haired!Nick](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/399180936820031501/414743478355099666/Nick_Soft.jpg) in a group chat, and then [Harry went to a plant nursery](https://twitter.com/TheHarrySource/status/964950125914349568), and I thought, "Maybe I'll write some cute, fluffy, easy-going, cosy Gryles about Nicholas doing his hair and Harold buying some plants." Then... uh, _this_ happened instead.
> 
> Dedicated to the wonderful [renlyne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/renlyne/), who not only betaed/sensechecked this fic, but is also about 83% to blame for its existence in the first place. She also made some beautiful art for the story, which can be found [here](http://jiksax.tumblr.com/post/171285575579/fic-make-it-worse).

He knows Harry’s there before he even catches sight of him in the bathroom mirror, naked and rumpled, his bare toes digging into the plush carpet of Nick’s bedroom floor. It’s a heady thing to be watched, quietly and contemplatively and without interruption, by a beautiful boy who’s only ever here on borrowed time. Nick’s still warm from his shower, but it makes another kind of heat spread across his skin.

The mug in Harry’s hand is chipped and washed-out, a sentimental relic Nick keeps at the very back of his cupboard. Liv’s only seven years old in the picture adorning the porcelain, both her front teeth missing as she grins with her eyes squeezed shut. She’d be horrified to see Harry with it; he suspects Harry’s already texted her a teasing picture.

Harry’s body has changed so much over the last seven years, his shoulders growing broad and strong, new tattoos appearing every few months, his pubic hair growing dark and unruly as he’s grown lazier and more comfortable with himself.

He’s looking at Nick with that soft, terrible look in his eyes, the look that tells Nick the two of them are probably _something_ , even if none of Harry’s words or actions ever have.

“My arse is down here,” Nick says, trying to keep the fondness out of his voice as he motions to his naked derriere. “God, you’d almost think I didn’t just give you the best dicking of your life.”

Harry gives his arse a short, but appreciative, glance, before meeting Nick’s eyes again with a knowing smile. It’s just a soft, muted thing, but it reaches his eyes in the loveliest way. He looks tired still, soft and damp and slightly flushed still from their lazy Sunday morning spent in bed. “Suppose it wasn’t the worst dicking I’ve ever had.”

“Oh stop it, you’ll give me a big head.”

“Mmm,” Harry hums, leaning his temple against the doorjamb. He bites his kiss-swollen lips like he’s biting down on a grin. “Nifty trick that, two fingers _and_ your cock in me. Liked it.”

Nick rolls his eyes to cover up the _me too_ , the _I’ll be wanking myself raw to that open, trusting, overwhelmed look on your face until my knob falls off_ , the _shouldn’t you be getting back on another plane and leaving me miserable soon, anyway?_. “Size queen.”

Harry laughs, low and hoarse. “Girth queen, maybe. Like it when it aches.”

“Harry Styles: Girth Queen. Has a nice ring to it.”

“Please don’t put it on a T-Shirt.”

“As if I—”

Harry scoffs. “Nicholas. Please.”

“Oh, come on,” Nick soothes, grinning back at him. “It would make great merch. Henry could do it. With sequins.”

“Terrible. So, so terrible.”

“Shush, you. Honestly. Harry Styles: Girth Queen. If fangirls only knew.”

“I think you’ve been on tumblr enough, love. They _know_.”

 _Love_. Harry doesn’t mean it like that, but Nick can’t help but hear it anyway. He closes his eyes to hide the way it cuts him open. “We are not reading that fisting fic again,” he says resolutely. “I don’t care how you felt about the quality of the _prose_.”

“Don’t tease,” Harry says, taking a slow sip of his tea. He clears his throat. “I feel like they just really, like, just, got us? You know? Like me and you, and our, you know, thing.”

Our _thing_. Not our _friendship_ or _fuck buddy arrangement_ or _how I spread myself out for you like a fucking feast and then leave you starving for months afterwards_ , or anything remotely definable. “I am not putting my entire hand in your bum,” Nick says, barely daring to meet Harry’s eyes in the mirror. “One foul move and you’ll have to wear a diaper for the rest of your natural born—”

“I’d let you,” Harry interrupts, short and sharp and breathless, simple as that. That beautiful flush on his cheeks seems to darken with it. “You know I would.”

Nick racks his brain for anything to say that isn’t _I can’t trust myself to go that deep inside you and not break into pieces_ , that isn’t _how many other people out there in the world would you let inside you like that?_ that isn’t _whose bed are you going to fall into when you get to LA?_.

He reaches for his eye cream with shaking hands. “Did you make me a tea as well?”

“Um.”

“You’re the absolute worst houseguest.”

“You can share mine,” Harry says softly. He’s probably upended Nick’s cupboard looking for his poncy organic _assam_ and Nick’s chipped mugs. There’ll be a used tea bag in the kitchen sink, sugar and milk left out on the counter. Nick hears the soles of his naked feet pad across the tiled floor. “Just made it.”

“You make a terrible cup of tea,” he breathes, trying not to accidentally dab cream into his eye as Harry touches him.

“No, I don’t.” Harry’s presses himself flush against Nick’s back, his nose nuzzling the back of Nick’s neck and raising goosebumps on his arms. Harry pushes the cup onto the bathroom counter, wrapping both arms around Nick’s naked waist until they’re impossibly close. “You just disagree with my methods.”

Nick turns his head, unwisely leaning into Harry’s caress, foolishly chasing his mouth. “I disagree with you leaving tea bags in until your tea’s undrinkable.”

Harry presses his nose to Nick’s cheek. “I like my tea strong.”

It takes everything in Nick not to lean forwards, to press his arse back against Harry’s prick, to sink down onto his elbows and beg for it. “Didn’t you have some business to tend to at a garden centre or a plant nursery or summat?” he murmurs helplessly as Harry’s hand slides up his stomach. He flexes his abs without quite meaning to, bracing himself as Harry’s hand travels up his chest. “Pick out some tulips?”

_Isn’t it about time you left me for something more important?_

Harry presses his pelvis forwards. He’s half-hard already. “You saying you don’t want it? Could be quick.”

“I just got out of the shower,” Nick says, holding on to the edge of the counter, lest his knees buckle underneath him. “Still need twenty minutes of intensive hair care before Pix comes ‘round for lunch.”

“I don’t know,” Harry says, running his fingers gently through Nick’s still-damp hair. It makes Nick want to drop to his knees and press his face against Harry’s stomach and offer himself up like a lamb to the slaughter. “Quite like your hair like this. All messy and curly and unkempt. It’s... nice.”

 _Nice?_ His hair’s a disaster, unruly locks going in every which direction. He still needs a blow dry, a straightening iron and five frustrating minutes with pomade and hairspray before he’s even remotely presentable. He barely ever lets anyone see his hair like this. “Can’t make a cup of tea, terrible hair care saboteur, gets excited about a tulip. Don’t know why I keep you around, honestly.”

“Good thing I leave tomorrow then.”

It hits Nick like a bucket of cold water. Back to LA and to a bed Nick’s never slept in, a bed that Nick suspects Harry rarely ever sleeps alone in. “Seriously,” he says, shrugging Harry off to reach for his hair dryer. “You’ll be late for your plant thing if you don’t shower and get ready.”

Harry presses his mouth to base of Nick’s neck, the spot he always lingers on when he’s balls-deep in him. Nick wonders if he does that to every person he fucks, or if he only does it because he knows it makes Nick weak for him. “Don’t want to go.”

“Get us some tulips if you want,” Nick says, grateful for the distraction provided by plugging it into the socket and fucking with the settings. “Pig and Stinky could use something new to knock off the table.”

“I’m not talking about the plant thing.”

Nick hesitantly meets Harry’s eyes in the mirror, Harry’s chin hooked over Nick’s shoulder and Harry’s hands on Nick’s hips again. He’s still hard, still too close. He’s still leaving tomorrow, and Nick’s still not going to stop him. Harry’s still not going to stop taking people to bed while he’s away, Nick’s not going to humiliate himself by asking him to. He turns the hair dryer in his hands. “Need to do my hair, pet.”

_You’re about to fuck off again for ages. Don’t look at me like that, don’t make this any harder than it already is._

Something flashes across Harry’s face, strange but fleeting. He presses a kiss to Nick’s shoulder and says, “Alright, I’ll shower.”

“Don’t forget my tulips,” Nick says lightly, before switching the hair dryer on. He tries not to look at Harry cleaning himself off, tries not to memorise the slope of his lower back or the curve of his shoulder or the look on his face as the water washes Nick’s sweat off of him.

Harry leaves town the next morning, with a tight hug and a whispered _call you when I’m back in town_. Nick doesn’t notice the flower pot until Harry’s been gone almost three days, blue and yellow forget-me-nots tucked away in the corner of his living room. He looks at his hand then, curls his fingers into a tight fist, wonders if he could ever fit so much of himself inside Harry that there wasn’t room for anyone else afterwards.

 _Forget-me-nots_ , Nick thinks caustically as he’s pouring a glass of water into the flower pot. As if forgetting’s ever been an option, as if he hasn’t spent the last seven years wishing he could remember anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr post](http://jiksax.tumblr.com/post/171285575579/fic-make-it-worse)
> 
>  
> 
> Title from ["Real" by Years & Years.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3T2RnTBp_4)


End file.
